365.99 This Tree is not a Toy

Well, I know I promised to shoot only the Zomb-E this week, but after 4 days, I realized that it’s not a total loss, or even a partial loss, really. The Zomb-E remains a strong performer, and a lens that will remain in my collection (and in use) for many years.

Plus, the two cheap lenses I ebayed came in yesterday and I couldn’t wait to play with them.

This image comes courtesy of the little-known Tokina AT-X 35-200mm f/3.5-4.5. I picked it up for less than $40, including shipping… Despite the seller’s assurances to the contrary, there’s a small chip in the front element and three spots of I-know-not-what, but am afraid is mold (though they don’t look like any of the pictures of lens mold that I found online) on the second element from the front. So I’ll probably be quarantining the lens after I finish testing.

Despite the chip and the probably-not-mold-but-what-else-could-it-be-? I’m fairly pleased with the lens’s performance. The out-of-camera saturation is a bit low in harsh light, but that’s to be expected. The contrast is decent, distortion no worse than I’ve seen in 21st century lenses, and bokeh is pleasant.

I’ll have more pictures and full writeup in the coming weeks. It would be sooner, but I’m heading off to Big Bend on Saturday, and will not be taking this lens with me, I don’t think.

Anyway. This shot is the result of playing around with a picture a bit in Aperture. It’s somewhat more tortured than my usual efforts, but not too outrageously.

D7000, Tokina AT-X 35-200mm f/3.5-4.5, zoomed to about 150ish. ISO100, 1/800th (AP mode), f/4.5

365.98 Attack of the Zomb-E Series IV

Went on a bit of a Zomb-E walk today… thought I nailed the shot, but failed and the light was gone by the time I figured it out. Oh well. This one is a bit interesting, maybe, and it almost comes close to illustrating nicely the depth of field and distance relationship.

D7000. Zomb-E Series. ISO800, 1/2500th (AP Mode), f/3.5.

365.97 Attack of the Zomb-E Series III

I had several ideas for a title for this one… a) the Trial; b) the Mob; c) When Zomb-E Series Attack; d) Attack of the Zomb-E Series III: the Reckoning; etc. But none of these felt right, so it just gets a generic title.

Does this remind anyone else of a long-lost Tim Burton movie?

Anyway… Fairly nasty weather in North TX today. I tried to get some pictures of birds and trees and nasty clouds, but it’s really hard to control the Zomb-E’s focal plane at distances greater than about 5 feet, so that was a bust. I’ll keep trying with this, as I can almost imagine making an entire art career out of this one broken lens…

Almost…

If I wanted to make a career out of my very pleasant and rather relaxing (most of the time) hobby, which I don’t.

And not that this picture would be one to put in the portfolio or anything either. Oh well.

D7000. Zomb-E Series. ISO100, 1/60th (AP mode, -2 EV (I have no idea how that happened…)), f/3.5.

365.96 Attack of the Zomb-E Series II “Straight from the Camera Beauty”

It’s Zomb-E Series week here at my 365 project! (if you’re confused, see yesterday’s post). Don’t be scared, it’s just a 75-150 that I broke running some macro tests on March 31, 2011.

I took the Zomb-E for a bit of a walk today, and when I got home, this came tumbling out of the camera. (Actually, it was helped along by Aperture’s default RAW processing engine, but still.)

Just goes to show: even a broken lens is right sometimes.

D7000. 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E Series. ISO1600 (leftover from yesterday: will someone please tattoo RESET YOURSELF! on the insides of my eyelids?), 1/8000th (AP mode), f/3.5.

365.95 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E Series, part 1

I have some sad news, friends… A terrible accident that has brought great disruption to the D7000 family.

Yesterday, I tested out reversing the 24mm f/2.8 ai on the 75-150, and stacking that assembly on the 104mm extension tube set. (FYI: This combo achieves 10:1 reproduction. Yes, 10:1, and reasonably sharp, if rather difficult to handle, for less than $350: GoGo.)

At some point during this test, I did something—I’m not sure what as yet—that caused the focus to stick at the close-focusing distance, and now it will not budge. The zoom still works fine, but the focus is no more.

I am rather saddened by this loss, even though I maybe took 10 pictures with the lens mounted in the traditional manner.

Luckily, the 75-150 works fine in Zombie mode… And I have two 52mm reverse ring, so one of them can just live on the 75-150… And since there’s one lens on the camera all the time, I have an extra rear cap, so GoGo.

It’s still sad though.

Anyways… this week will be 75-150 remembrance week here on my 365 project. I hope you like beautiful bokeh, saturated color, and tack-sharp centers!

D7000. 75-150mm f/3.5 Zomb-E Series. ISO800, 1/160th (AP mode), f/3.5.

Addendum: I was going to buy another one straight away, but picked up a Vivitar 70-210 Series 1, first version (made by Kiron, and purportedly a pretty honking decent lens), for $35, and it should be a winner for the tiny bit of telephoto stuff that I do at present. I will be watching ebay and keh and the various big camera stores for another 75-150, even though I won’t use it much. I want a fully working one for my collection, and they’re relatively cheap, though not as cheap as the vivitar… Ok ok, and I also picked up a Tokina AT-X 35-200mm f/3.5-4.5 that might make an interesting walk-around, if a bit longish on the short end. I’m hopeful, despite not being able to find much in the way of reviews…

I hate my love for gear, and despise my constant drive to acquire more, but love that I’m happy to satisfy these (mostly) with 30 year old manual lenses.

365.94 Variation within Repetition

(or, I <3 Philip Glass)

I found the source of the strange flare I got whenever I tried to use flash or any other bright lights with the new macro rig… the filter that came with the Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI, and that the seller proclaimed had never left the front of the lens in all its years…

I guess he never shot macro with a flash.

Anyway…

The flash was bounced off of one of those big honking containers of Cheese flavored Fishy Crackers, the 1.87lb, 850g, Gallon-size (or larger) laminated, foil-lined cardboard boxes, that I carefully (and with no small amount of cursing, but also no paper cuts) opened out as flat as it would go.

Tomorrow, probably, this reflector will become a sort of big, cornucopia-shaped diffuser just for macro. I’ll be sure to let you know how it turns out.

For today, it was just draped over the camera-mounted flash, lens, and subject (in this case, a 1/4″ fine-threaded bolt). Nice light, methinks.

D7000, Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI, reversed and extended by 104mm. ISO100, 1/250th, f/8. SB-700, mounted on the camera, in manual mode, zoomed to 24mm (by the camera… so much for manual), 1/16th power. Very minor adjustments to black point, contrast, and definition in Aperture.

365.93 tree droppings @ 8:1

I was having a ton of fun building little alien worlds and inventing nice/scary stories about them until I found that the lump of tree droppings I brought in was heavily populated by some tiny, white, grub-type things… I didn’t manage to get a photo of any, as the depth of field is too tiny and I’m stuck on a tripod and shooting multi-second shutter speeds until I build a macro flash diffuser thingy (hint: weekend project).

So I tossed it outside and got to playing with levels in Aperture a bit, and here we are.

D7000. Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 AI, reversed and stacked on 104mm extension. ISO100, 8 seconds, f/8.

And does anyone have any idea what the dark band at the bottom is about? I’ve been getting this on quite a few (but not all) shots with this particular macro rig. It seems to happen most often when the lens is tilted forward beyond 10 degrees or so.

If you have any ideas, please to pass them on!